Just over a month after ConAgra announced it would move its Slim Jim production to Ohio, the Town of Garner received more bad news.

Twenty-one ConAgra employees, a spouse and an employee of D&R Welding and Fabrication filed a complaint of negligence against several defendants including the Town of Garner.

The complaint claims the Town of Garner owes legal duty to the plaintiffs because employees negligently failed to make sure that welding work being done to install the natural gas and propane lines was done by an experienced professional with the proper certification last June. It also claims Garner allowed the line purging to take place within a room inside the building that contained possible ignition starters. According to the complaint, the Town also failed to check that the company listed on the permits for the welding job was actually the subcontractor used.

The complaint claims inspectors from the Town of Garner were present at ConAgra the morning of the day of the explosion and witnessed the line purging. The Town requires contractors to have proper certification to perform welding work. The complaint reads that no one working for the subcontractor Midsouth Industrial Refrigeration, Inc. had the proper permit or license.

Along with Garner, plaintiffs have claims against Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., Energy Systems Analysts, Inc., Freedom Electric, Inc., Fireye, Inc., Maxon Corporation, Weeks-Williams-Devore, Inc. Rockwell Automation, Inc., Midwouth Industrial Refrigeration, Inc., Todd’s Maintenance and Construction, L.L.C., Honeywell International, Inc., AJ Antunes and Co. doing business as Antunes Controls, Rexel, Inc., IMS Metering Systems, N.A., Inc., Sensus Metering Systems, Inc., Sensus USA, Inc. and Sensus (Bermuda 2) LTD., Inc.

However, the ConAgra Foods company is not among the defendants.

Mayor Ronnie Williams said the complaint filed against the Town was unexpected.

“I’m totally blown away,” he said.

The Town released a formal statement Apr. 8 in response to the lawsuit.

“The Town believes that the inclusion of the Town in this lawsuit is improper and without basis,” the statement reads. “It is unfortunate that some have decided to include the Town in this matter.”